Chargers broadcaster Hank Bauer makes hacky, anti-semitic joke

Look, radio announcers have a much tougher job in some respects than television announcers. You have to paint pictures, you have to fill in every detail, you have to speak for three hours straight with only your partner and commercials to provide respite. Sometimes things get out of hand and weird, but there’s no excuse for them to take a turn for the tasteless.

That’s where Chargers color analyst Hank Bauer went on Saturday. He and play-by-play man Josh Lewin (who does his best to maintain professionalism throughout this clip) are at the end of a meaningless preseason game. Lewin makes a joke about fans not sticking around after about an hour, as fans at NFL preseason games are known to do. Then, uh, Bauer decides to give us a history lesson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uee0aHEIXQM

Now look, before you look at us criticizing this and call us overly politically correct, two things to consider:

1. This joke is super hacky. If you’re going to offend an entire group of people, at least try and think of something original or clever that lets that group of people in on the joke. That said… really, there’s no such thing as a “funny” anti-Semitic joke.

2. Bauer knows he’s screwed up because of how haphazardly he finishes it off (“your family member”) and how quickly he tries to make it right with Lewin. Don’t double down on this, admit you spoke a little too freewheelingly, and lets just move on.

Kudos, again, to Lewin for tossing it aside. His “the football game is gonna end in 25 seconds” has an air of thankfulness under it, which is probably funnier in itself than Bauer’s tasteless, dated joke.